Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Browns Valley, California, USA

January 14, 2018

"I'm not making an issue of the
words
you
use.
I'm making the system from which the
words
are derived the problem. Given the system, I can't
answer
the
question.
You
see,
it's not
simply
the
words
you're
using
that are the problem. What I want to convey to you is this: in the
assumptions from which you are
asking
the
question,
you allow for no
truthfulanswer
to the
question.
The
words
you
usereflect
your assumptions accurately, and given your assumptions, there's no
solution to the problem. One cannot solve the problem in the system
you are
using.
In fact, that system is the problem. Now, I'm going to
answer
your
question,
because, you know, I came here and agreed to do that, but I want to
tell you
the truth
before I
answer
the
question.
So I'm telling you that my
answer
will make no sense if you
listen
to the
answer
in that system from which you
asked
the
question.
The
answer
is that the organization has for several years been shifting away from
a structure that has a central place or a top place from which
decisions are made and passed on. We always tried not to operate that
way,
and over the years we've become more and more successful at not
operating that
way.
The structure of just about any
ordinary
organization, however, is that
way."

When you
listenWerner's
response, it's
clear
he isn't merely responding to the
interviewer's
inquiryper se. Were he only doing
that, it would have been
brilliant.
Rather, he's responding unasked to where the
inquirycomes from. That's what makes his response stunning. And it's
that he's responding to where the
inquiry
comes from, that this essay addresses.

We
human beings
are enigmatic in so many
ways
(we are to me, at least).
We enact things. We run our lives. We occupy space and
time
in
the world.
Yet for the most part, we don't know
who we really are.
Wow! We do what we do, and we do a lot, and yet for the most
part, given we don't know
who we really are,
we don't even know who's doing the doing. That's enigmatic to
me. In spite of it, we don't invest much capital in the
inquiry
into
who we really are.
So when we're in a
conversation,
we're mostly
speaking
while not knowing
who we really are
- said another
way,
we're mostly unaware that we're the space that colors and shapes what
we're
talking
about (that's actually a lot closer to
the truth
than it sounds). That space is behind (ie is prior to)
what we're
talking
about. Colloquially, we
say
it's where we're coming from. And where we're coming from,
colors and shapes what we're reallytalking
about: where we're coming from, colors and shapes what we're really
saying.